It can be appreciated that water harvesting devices have been around for years. The purpose of these devices is quite simple, that is to capture water and store it for later use. One common example as such is the commonly known rain barrel. The water harvesting device in this case captures water that is collected from water collection systems like an eaves and downspout system affixed onto a building structure. Once the water is captured it is stored within and kept for later use such as drier days when rainwater is not available. While these devices have not changed much in past years, public use and concerns surrounding safety, improved performance and convenience has risen in recent decades due to their increased yet recent popularity for water conservation demand. Current devices in the present art are not adequately meeting the rising needs of the public.
One major concern of these devices is to provide adequate means for collecting water most efficiently while also ensuring that foreign matter or debris is not collected with it or that may cause an obstruction to water flow. In the example of rainwater harvesting from a building collection systems, debris such as twigs, leaves from trees and other matter often accompany rain water exiting from conventional eaves and downspouts and without adequate management of these items water inlet areas can fill and clog with debris resulting in ineffective water collection or even backing up of the water toward the building structure. There are prior art devices for rainwater collection, filters and the like for installation within the eaves and downspouts but failing to install these or properly maintaining them raises the needs to have these safeguards directly integrated with the water harvesting device. Furthermore, many prior art devices that capture such debris requires frequent and regular maintenance is required to keep the inlet are clean resulting in time consuming maintenance for the user. These debris items, twigs for example are often shaped such that they can also enter the water inlet and potentially cause damage to internal components of a water harvesting device. In the example of a rainwater harvesting device, filtering devices or mosquito safety screens installed at the inlet are susceptible to damage from entering debris. Once a tear or hole is pierced in the safety netting mosquitoes are free to enter the device and lay their eggs, potentially leading to the undesired breeding of the West Nile Virus.
Another concern with these devices is that adequate means water and debris management all year around is not provided. During each season, water and debris should be managed so each may be directed in a proper manner so as to: avoid collection of water into the tank potentially freezing and causing damage to the device; and avoid clogging of flow and potential backing up of water-flow due to debris build-up. Current rainwater harvesting devices do not facilitate management of this debris as such.
Furthermore, concerns regarding: easy installation; simple, worry-free maintenance; and simple and intuitive mechanisms for flow diversion are all desired elements of a water harvesting device which are not addressed with the prior art. Adequate means for the above should be provided by integrating the same directly within or onto the water device to also avoid the complex piping needs of remotely installed diverters or filters. Should a device provide this, installation would be simplified and cost of commissioning such a device would reduce.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to have a water harvesting device that provides improved collection, diversion means, reduced user maintenance, simplified installation or provides a safer operating device.